The Fatslayer Chronicles

Today's Fatslaying Workout None - rest day!

Today's Weight 205.0lbs

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I'm really excited to be getting some regular visitors to this blog - thank you all! I know I should be content writing into the void, but seeing the visitor stats and reading the feedback is really motivating and thrilling. I've gained so much inspiration and so many laughs from reading other blogs, that it's nice to be part of that wider community. Us against the world - TAWANDA!

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I'm feeling a bit philosophical today.......don't say I didn't warn you.

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There’s a danger, when you’ve been fat all your life the way I have, that thinness becomes the unquestioned holy grail, and that everything else has to be sacrificed in the quest for that one precious prize. By way of illustration, lately my thought processes have been going something like this:

”I’m 5 foot 1 inch tall, so that means that I need to be 132lbs for my BMI to be in the normal range, but I better not stop at 132lbs because that’s right at the very top and I ought to aim for lower, so maybe I’d better aim for 125lbs instead to give me a bit of a buffer, or better still, why not aim for 120lbs because it’s a nice round number and it means I’ll have lost exactly 50kg (or 110lbs) and my BMI will be 22.5 which is nicely smack bang in the middle of the range, or maybe I ought really to aim to be in the bottom half of the range, 115lbs or 110lbs, but what if that makes my skin go all saggy, maybe I ought to start saving now for a tummy tuck and batwing removal, ormaybeIshould
justhaveweightlosssurgerysothatI'llbeskinnierquickersothe
skinwillreboundmoreeasily.…”

Phew!

I caught myself doing this last night, and I had one of those sudden epiphanies when I saw myself clearly, and realised that this was not at all the way I wanted to be. I saw that I’d swallowed the whole sorry, shallow, media-fuelled bullshit hook line and sinker. Shame on me. Shame, shame, shame on me!

In most areas of my life, I like to make my own mind up about things. I don’t just swallow information without properly digesting it and thinking about it first – so why should weight loss and body image be any different? How could I have capitulated to the tyranny of the weighing scales and the BMI charts without first putting up even a semblance of a fight?

As an intelligent woman I should’ve known better. I’ve surrendered my God-given freedom to decide my own body shape destiny, and allowed the media to dictate my agenda. So now it’s time to start revolting!

I suddenly saw that getting obsessed by the numbers is just plain unhealthy and unnatural. Not to mention that it’s such a huge waste of time and emotional energy to wonder now (at 205lbs) whether I’ll be skinny enough at 140lbs or if I need to go to 120lbs.

How the hell can I possibly tell? And it it really so fucking important?

Since I was an infant in my mother’s arms, I’ve never been the correct weight for my height. At junior school I weighed 50kg (110lbs), which even now I’m an adult equates to a BMI of 21. So I’ve never known what it’s like to be at a ‘normal’ weight, and consequently I have no idea whether I need to aim for 110lbs, 120lbs, 130lbs, 140lbs and so on. The charts tell me I need to be under 132lbs, but the truth is that the lowest weight I’ve ever been as an adult is 166lbs, so getting to 165lbs will be a pretty fine achievement for me.

Wow, now I come to think of it, I felt pretty fabulous the last time I was 166lbs. I’d been doing a lot of mountain bike races, and had just completed (easily) the annual 58 mile London to Brighton cycle ride. I wasn’t exactly what you’d call skinny, but by the same token I was also far from overshadowing the Goodyear Blimp. I was beginning to feel comfortable in my own skin. I think this time around I’d lost sight of that.

Now if I can get back to 166lbs, I’ll be pretty damn pleased with myself!

I’ve got to start getting my head around the fact that if I feel foxy and gorgeous at 160-odd lbs, and I’m fit and energetic and healthy, that I should stop at 160-odd lbs, even though technically I’ll still be ‘overweight’. Hell, it's time to be a rebel and fly in the face of the received wisdom that you have to get to below a BMI of 25. Time to start thinking for myself, and make up my own bloody mind!

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Anyway,after deciding last night intellectually that I don't want to be too skinny, fate sent me a visceral reminder of it this morning, just to ram the point home.

I was one of the presenters of an all day seminar, and in the front row was a woman who was skinny to the point of emaciation – she was all big buggy eyes and tombstone teeth in a pinched little face, with collarbones you could slice cheese on and sharp little wrists, knees and elbows. She was wearing a strappy little low-cut crop top which showed her breastbone, and she had those awful bony horizontal ridges across the top of her boobs as if she’d had a griddle or washboard surgically inserted just below the skin. Very attractive, no?

When it was time to break for coffee and biscuits, I declined the goodies and fished in my bag for a banana and ate that, but she produced two radishes (with a flourish) and nibbled on them for the best part of an hour. Then for lunch she had two sticks of celery and one laughing cow extra light cheese triangle - and she left half of the triangle!

What the fuck?!

I guess I should be more sensitive and not take the piss out of someone who probably has a full blown case of anorexia, but honest to God, she looked awful. Besides, in my own defence I overheard her telling her friend that "overweight slobs should be steered away from public speaking because it's bad for the corporate image" - (which I'm assuming was aimed at me) - so that didn't exactly predispose me to think warmly towards her.

To conclude, if that's what skinny is, I'm having none of it. Nope, I'll get me some nice soft curves, and be done with it...even if it does tarnish the corporate image.

Today's Fatslaying Workout 42 minutes rebounding

Today's Weight 205.0lbs

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I reckon I must have been bodysnatched by Aliens a couple of weeks ago, ‘cos whatever I do I can’t seem to satisfy this insane hunger. My stomach is growling so much that I’m scared it’s going to punch its way through my ribcage a la John Hurt and devour everything in sight, and nothing I feed it seems to satisfy it. Someone could probably offer me a plate of tripe cooked in lard with a congealed fat dressing at the moment and I wouldn’t turn my nose up. I don’t know what the hell’s got into me.

D’you think it’s something to do with the fact that I’m still bleeding like a stuck pig? This period-from-hell is showing no signs of easing – in fact, it seems to be intensifying with each passing day. If it's my body’s way of telling me I’ve got to replenish my energy stores, surely the 75lbs I’ve already got stored is enough to tide me over for a good few months at least? I've seen blue whales with less blubber than I'm carrying around my midriff - I can’t be on the verge of starvation already, surely?

I’ve been eating healthily – at least 5 portions of fruit and veggies a day, a couple of litres of water, wholegrains, fish, peanuts…I’m definitely getting at least 1200 calories a day, and most days its probably closer to 1400 or 1500. And it’s not as if I’ve been flogging myself to death exercise-wise either – I do a maximum of 60 minutes cardio a day and lift my wussy little 4.5lb weights three times a week…I’m hardly training my arse off like Paula Radcliffe!

It’s got to be the bleeding – there’s no other rational explanation. I’d forgotten what a pain periods are when you start to lose weight. When I’m gaining weight my periods stop because of the hormone imbalance from my polycystic ovaries. Weight gain intensifies PCOS, so my periods cease, and I start having to plait the hairs on my upper lip and chin to stop myself tripping over them (heh heh, only kidding!). A few months into a weight loss phase, and my periods come back with a vengeance and I end up bleeding heavily for anything up to 6 months at a time. It’s a right royal pain in the arse, I can tell you. Especially when you’re trying to pee and change your Tampax in a pitch dark portaloo in the middle of a field in the middle of the night like I was on Saturday at that bloody Blues festival.

[Note to self – perhaps I should have chosen a better venue than a real ale festival for my first ever camping experience – by midnight the loos were in a terrible state, and when you’re bleeding for England that just ain’t funny!]

Anyway, whatever the reason, I've got to try and think of something that will keep the hunger pangs at bay longer than the stuff I'm eating at the moment. Maybe this semi-veggie diet I'm following is the problem and I should just get me some red meat? Great big hunks of juicy raw steak or something?

Which reminds me - my pale-skinned colleague was slathering on the suntan oil before her walk this lunchtime and her arms were reminiscent of basted uncooked chicken skin - maybe I should've taken a bite out of her and seen if that kept the munchies under control for the afternoon...

Today's Fatslaying Workout 60 minute bike ride (700 calories burned!)

Today's Weight 204.5lbs

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I realised at the weekend just how far I am from being fit and healthy, and having a healthy attitude to food. If a journey of a thousand miles is supposed to start with a single step, I feel as if I’ve been walking backwards for the past 15 weeks. Christ, if I’m this bad now, what the hell was I like back in March? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

We went to a real ale and blues festival in Sussex, which essentially meant that we stood around in a grassy field just outside Chichester for 14 hours straight, drinking, eating and listening to a succession of blues bands.

Though I like to kid myself that I’m hip and cool and that I love that sort of thing, the unvarnished truth is that I’m simply carrying far too much excess poundage to find 14 hours in an upright position a comfortable experience. By about the four hour mark my shoulders and neck were stiff, my back was aching, and the soles of my feet felt as if they’d be flogged by a length of hosepipe. Only another 10 hours to go!

I looked around me, and apart from a few old timers sitting on deckchairs, everyone else seemed to be standing without any visible discomfort at all, which made it all that much more humiliating and demoralising. I felt like The-Fat-Chick-Who-Couldn’t-Hack-It, and it was a horrible awakening. It’s bad enough being uncomfortable in common with everyone else, but when you’re the only one that seems to be struggling it somehow feels so much worse.

Anyway, I got through it by gritting my teeth (hey, wasn’t this supposed to be fun and enjoyable?), and without any apparent long term damage to my spine, which felt like it was at breaking point by the time 1am. finally arrived. Maybe if I’d been getting steadily lashed like my companions on ale and scrumpy and smuggled in Absinthe I’d have numbed the discomfort and been able to enjoy myself more, but I stuck to mineral water and Diet Coke because I wasn’t about to waste good calories on drink...not when there was so much food on offer!

Here I’ve got to face another uncomfortable truth – I still have a problematic attitude towards food, particularly in a social setting. I don’t know why that surprises and saddens me so much, but it does. I guess I thought 15 weeks of healthy living had ‘cured’ 40 years of problems. A tad optimistic, maybe?

Anyway, if my observations of naturally slim people are accurate, they seem to be almost oblivious to food until they’re hungry, then they will choose exactly what they need to satisfy their hunger, and that’s the end of the matter. That doesn’t sound so hard, does it? So why can’t I be like that?

From the minute the gates opened at 11am, I was obsessed with food. I didn’t go mad or shovel down loads of crap, but on the other hand I couldn’t simply push thoughts of food to the back of my mind and think about anything else. If it had been a food festival that may have been appropriate, but this was a music festival, for chrissake!

I was constantly aware of how long the queues were at the various food stalls, and what the folks around me were eating. There was very little decent food on offer, and I started getting more and more anxious that those stalls might run out of the good stuff and leave me with a choice of just crap, crapper or crappest.

It was as if I was on the verge of a decade-long famine of biblical proportions. My mind went into a potential-food-deprivation-tailspin, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything else until I’d got at least one healthy meal inside me.

The good news is that it was the healthy stuff that I was anxious to get my mitts on, and none of the real crap tempted me at all. There was the ubiquitous van selling chips, spine-burgers and other dodgy ‘meat’-related offerings, which I was able to walk past without feeling even the teeniest bit tempted. Ditto with the hot donut stall (especially after I caught a glimpse of the owner’s filthy fingernails). And since I don’t like pork, the hog-roast stall also offered little in the way of temptation – the British love of pork crackling never fails to turn my stomach.

Eventually I wore K down with my whining, and we ended up at a Moroccan place, and I had a flatbread piled high with homemade chilli paste, caramelised onions, coriander-infused olive oil, three small vegetarian spicy sausages, salad and green lentils. Filling and delicious, and reasonably healthy. At least the fat all seemed to be ‘good’ fat, so I just ate it and tried not to worry about it.

Even then, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about food. What would I have for supper? Would the jacket-potato van have sold out by the time K was hungry again? What if he got so engrossed in the music that he forgot to eat completely?

Honestly, I was a woman possessed. It was only at 10pm (a full 8 hours later!), with my jacket-potato-and-beans supper in hand, that I was finally able to take a deep breath and relax. Famine averted. Healthy choices achieved. All well with the world. Now if I could have just laid down for a little bit I might have actually started to enjoy myself!

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing. I'm being BAAAAAAAAD! But it's so bloody hot!!!

Today's Weight 205.0lbs

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Don’t most people lose their appetite in hot weather? That's normal behaviour, right? Not for me, apparently. Yesterday and today it was 35C in our office (knocking on 100F), and for both days I was absolutely tormented by food cravings.

I kept filling my bottle up at the water fountain in the vain hope that filling up on water would do the trick, and I ate a banana, then a nectarine, then another nectarine, then an orange, then a handful of cherries….and I was still hungry. The desire for food was like a hot needle in my brain – for the life of me I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

Basically what I wanted was one of two things. I wanted something either crunchy or doughy and chewy. Nothing else satisfied. A naked Brad Pitt coulda come and perched on the edge of my desk holding a packet of buns, and it would've been the buns (of the bread variety, heh heh) that I'd have made a grab for. So you can see why fruit, although it was sweet and cold and delicious, just didn’t hit the spot.

When I got home K had prepared me a beautiful mixed salad with Jersey potatoes and flaked tuna. My mouth watered, until I saw that for himself he’s prepared grilled honey-glazed bacon and a grilled chicken fillet on a soft white roll, with barbeque sauce and salad. Teasing bastard! Damn, his meal looked good. It looked better than mine. Hell, I deserved it more than he did. Hadn’t I been slaving away in an oven-hot office for ten bloody hours while he’d been snoozing in the garden? It just wasn’t fair!

It took every ounce of willpower not to snatch it out of his hand and wolf it down, ‘cos man, I wanted it so bad I could almost taste it. I didn’t do it though. Wanted to, but didn’t. Big difference. He offered me a bite (maybe he saw me sitting in a puddle of drool) and I resisted, AND I lied through my teeth and said I was perfectly satisfied with my salad. I wanted to throw the bloody salad in the bin and sink my choppers into his lovely bacon and chicken buttie, but I didn’t. Nor did I go on a compensatory chocolate binge later to make up for my feelings of deprivation (although it did cross my mind to).

Does this mean I’ve conquered my food demons? Yay, me! They came, they tempted, and I kicked their arse! Hopefully this means I’ll weigh 120lbs by this time next week. Yowzer!

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing.

Today's Weight 206.5.0lbs

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It would be interesting to do a study to see if people with a sweet tooth gravitate to work in offices, or whether office work is so soul-destroyingly dull that people turn to a quick sugar fix to get them through the day. Whatever the reason, I’ve been an office-based worker for the past fifteen years, and every one of those offices has been like a sugar junkie’s dream, with a constant and ever-changing array of goodies on offer in the ‘Office Sweetie Tin’.

Since I started this job I’ve given the sweetie tin a wide berth. I’ve filled it up plenty of times (I’m part of the team, so it’s expected of me), but I’ve never once snaffled any of its contents. To be honest, I never even think about it really – I’ve designated it a personal No-Go-Zone, and that’s the end of the matter. So it’s not as if I cast longing glances in its direction, or dribble uncontrollably when my colleagues sit there chowing down on its contents the whole live-long day. [Yes, these are the same colleagues mentioned in yesterday’s post, who berate fat poor folks for being….duh….fat and poor. I never said they weren’t hypocrites. But I digress….]

In the way of office life everywhere, my colleagues are aware that I’m trying to lose weight and get into shape. You can’t keep a secret like that in an office – it’s against the rules. It also seems to be against the rules for them to just let me get on with it. I don’t think a single day has gone by when they haven’t commented on my lunch (how healthy and modest it is), my lack of sweetie eating (seen almost as a personal affront), my lunchtime walks (you’re very committed…). Jeezus! It does my friggin’ head in!

One colleague is older than I by three months. She’s exactly the same height as I am. I weigh (currently) 206.5lbs. She weighs 96.5lbs (despite having three children). She panics when she gains an ounce, and is saving up for liposuction ‘cos she’s got such a fat arse. Yeah, right. This lunchtime, apropos of absolutely nothing, she turned to me and said loudly: “I don’t think you should lose any more weight. You’re absolutely fine as you are – you won’t be ‘you’ if you get any skinnier…”.

I counted to 10 before replying. For one thing I HATE being put on the spot and made to discuss my weight in front of the entire office, and for another thing I wanted to smash her patronising face in! But my mother didn’t raise me to be rude (heh heh) so I quietly pointed out that I’m patently not ‘absolutely fine’ and that I’m simply getting to grips with my weight before it starts to cause health problems.

Then I picked up some paperwork to indicate that the subject was closed and that she should just shut the hell up.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about your health or anything like that," she said, appealing to the rest of the team to back her up. "You’re not fat, you’re just cuddly. You should learn to be happy with yourself as you are instead of trying to force yourself to be something that you’re not. And men love curvy women...”

This time I counted to fifty, and when I figured I had myself sufficiently under control that I could walk past her desk on my way to the door without bashing her upside the head with the office hole punch, I took my leave. But I was so bloody fuming! I’ve met quite a few of these women in my time, two faced bitches who expect nothing less than bodily perfection for themselves, but assure you that health-threatening imperfection is fine and dandy for you. This particular co-worker is the ring-leader of the ‘slag-off-the-fat-and-feckless’ brigade, and judges everyone by their external appearance. So who the fuck does she think she’s kidding when she says size doesn’t matter?

OK, rant over. Sorry about that, but I just had to cough it up before it choked me.

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing.

Today's Weight 206.5.0lbs

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Check out this post by the ever-articulate Meg. I agree 100% with every word she says, and as usual she expresses herself beautifully. I read the SDP comments as well, and wrote a whole post about them, but I was ranting and raving and cussing and cursing so much that I accidentally deleted it. Never mind, its no great loss as Meg said it all much much better than I could ever have done.

I can understand the impulse to want to distance yourself from a stigmatised group, but the eagerness of people to leap on the stone-throwing bandwagon never ceases to amaze me. Every day at work I have to battle the most astonishing ignorance and bigotry. It's become a favourite office pastime among my co-workers to slag off members of the public for being "fat and feckless", and saddle them with every character flaw under the sun.

We work in a District General Hospital in an deprived area, so we see a lot of unhealthy low income people - and yes, quite a lot of them are fat, but so bloody what?

When I finally 'bite' at their ignorant comments, they wheel out the old chestnut, "Yeah, but you're different..', as if that makes it OK - in fact they seem surprised that I'm not joining in with the general fat-bashing.

Apparently what separates me from the 'less worthy' fat folks is that I'm "doing something about it". This is apparently very important. It means I'm redeemable, not beyond all hope and sympathy. Apparently being paralysed because you're caught between a rock and a hard place is no excuse - being fat and not doing anything about it has become the ultimate crime.

This is such a sore point for me. I come from a working class family, and yes, a lot of my close relatives - like me - suffer from weight problems, and struggle with health and fitness issues, but it absolutely doesn't mean that it's solely and utterly our own bloody fault, and evidence of some innate failing. The sanctimonious arseholes who think differently can just go fuck themselves.

Oh well, enough ranting....I could write an epic on this issue, but sadly it wouldn't change anything.

Today's Fatslaying Workout 60 minute cycle ride

Today's Weight 206.5.0lbs

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Darn scales bumped me back up the pound I lost yesterday - I think they hate me!

Oops, just remembered I'm not supposed to be getting hung up on the number on the scale. Fuck it. Ok, ok, deep breath - alrighty, I am serene again. Bloody scales have no power over me...

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I've just got back from an hour long cycle ride - apart from coming home with the whole of my front covered with bugs (even sticking to the sweat on my face - lovely) it was really enjoyable. I got into some kind of cadence on the pedals and tried to keep up the same rhythm on the hills as I was doing on the flat, and I felt pretty good. Almost athletic, even.

In my mind's eye I see myself as some sort of sporty, fit young thing - as long as I keep away from reflective surfaces I can convince myself pretty well. What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve over...

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Speaking of mirrors (we were?) I realised something about myself today - I don't see myself in them. Not in the vampire sense - I just never seem to look at myself in them. Is that weird? I found this out because a kindly soul at work had the honesty to tell me that I had something stuck between my two front teeth. I took myself off to the toilet to sort myself out, stood in front of the mirror, took a long look (I thought), and went back to my office confident I could now smile with impunity. My co-worker looked a tad embarrassed (for me, probably, at my ineptitude) and said - ahem - it's still there.

Can you believe it? I'd gone to the toilet specifically to look in the mirror, had stood in front of it, and hadn't focused on my reflection at all!

God only knows what I was focusing on - there was no diverting graffitti, no drawings of male genitalia, no fascinating condom flavours to tickle my fancy - there was just me and a mirror, alone and unobserved, and I didn't even look at myself!

This non-looking habit possibly explains why K is always having to gently point out to me when I have bogeys hanging out of my nostrils, or sticky-up hair, or spinach between my teeth (its coming across strongly how attractive I am, huh?) - obviously I'm a serial eye averter.

Is this a fat thng, do you think? D'you think I just don't look because I don't like seeing my double chins and my lovely chubby chops? Will I suddenly start doing a 'Mirror Mirror on the Wall' routine when I consider myself slim and gorgeous enough?

I'll have to let you know if my behaviour changes as I get closer to goal - see if the mirror and I finally start to bond. In the meantime, I'll just have to rely on other people to point out my grooming failures, since I don't seem to be capable of keeping myself clean and presentable!

Today's Fatslaying Workout 35 minutes free weights.

Today's Weight 205.5.0lbs

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Shouldn't I be thin by now? I've been soooooo good, and it's been almost 14 weeks since I last had a nibble of chocolate or cake or any other refined carb trash, and I've been an honest to God exercise demon - I'm expecting the Olympic selection committee to turn up on my doorstep to beg me to join the squad any day now. Hell, I'm bored with being fat, I want to see what thin feels like for a change. When will men start to walk into lamposts or drive through red lights 'cos I'm such a head turner? I never did have much of a long term vision - it's all very well me telling myself that if I carry on plugging away I'll be fit'n'healthy by this time next year - I want to be fit'n'healthy'n'gorgeous'n'skinny NOW, goddammit!

Hmmm, impatience, thy name is Fatslayer.

The scales registered another half pound drop this morning, so I'm teetering on the brink of 25lbs lost. Almost a quarter of the way to goal. So I'm impatient, but I'm happy impatient, if you know what I mean. I picked up a sack of dog food yesterday that weighed 12.5kg (27.5lbs) and it was damn heavy, and I though Jeeze, I've lost almost that much weight, and I've got another three sacks of chow still to lose. No wonder the dog salivates when he looks at me - I must look like a year's worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner to him when he's feeling hungry. And he's a Labrador, so he's ALWAYS hungry.

Talking of hungry, my munchies are starting to diminish now that my period seems to have reached it's peak - for a couple of days last week I was absolutely RAVENOUS. In a fit of true evangelism I threw half a lemon cheesecake in the bin after a dinner party on Saturday night (and I hadn't had even the tiniest forkful), and ten minutes later I was seriously considering brushing off the coffee grounds and carrot peelings and eating the whole sorry mess. It was only 'cos I caught a glimpse of the dog, eyeing up my fat thighs with a glint in his eye and a lick of his chops, that I was able to resist. Heh heh.

Good thing was that although I was almost crazed by food cravings - it was how I imagine pregnancy to be, 'cept I wanted chocolate not anchovy flavour icecream - I DIDN'T SUCCUMB TO THEM! I ate slightly more food in volume terms, but I kept within my calorie allowance, and managed to avoid refined carbs into the bargain. Damn, but I'm good!

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing - I feel like an invalid!

Today's Weight 206.5.0lbs

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I TOLD you I fucked up my feet yesterday...man, they're sore today. Now I understand why flaying the soles of people's feet with a barbed whip was such an effective form of torture in the middle ages...I feel completely debilitated and good-for-nothing today.

A friend of mine dated a guy who liked her to burn the soles of his feet with lit cigarettes - tres weird, huh? He said the 'eroticism of pain' (I'm quoting here) fueled desire more effectively than any other stimulus. They only dated a month 'cos he freaked her out too much in the end, and I can't say I blame her. I could definitely never get involved in any kind of SM relationship - I just don't get the pleasure/pain thing at all - give me all pleasure any day!

It's been a scorching hot day today, and I've done bugger all except sit in the garden in the shade, drying out my blisters and reading a chick-lit novel by Marian Keyes. I haven't done a jot of exercise (or activity, period) and I'm starting to feel a bit like Jabba-the-Hutt, 'cos K's been waiting on me hand and foot so my poor little footsies can start to heal. Luckily for him I didn't put a chain around his neck or force him to wear a bikini a la Princess Leia. Heh heh. Damn, he might've looked sexy, though!

Today's Fatslaying Workout 60 minute walk (in 80F+ temperatures. Man, even the road was melting - literally!); 32 minutes free weights.

Today's Weight 207.0lbs

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Hayfever is a bitch, isn't it?! All day yesterday my eyes were itching like buggery - in the end they were driving me so crazy that I had to physically restrain myself from digging the little suckers out of their sockets and stamping on the bloody things. I looked as if I'd gone ten rounds with Tyson, peering at the world through puffy red watery slits - hmmm, very attractive. Combined with the red runny nose, it's small wonder I was having to fight the fellas off with a stick all day - I must've looked a real man-magnet!

To compound my misery, after a three day hiatus, my period returned with a vengeance, catching me by surprise in the middle (of course!) of a board meeting (don'tcha just love it when that happens!), and making me more irritable and out-of-sorts than ever.

Plus my weight still hadn't dropped it's post-gammon-steak excess water, so all in all I was grouchy, itchy and seriously pissed off the whole bloody day.

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Aren't you glad today is another day? Heh heh.

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I'm a little less grouchy today, despite the fact that the scales are refusing to play ball, and I seem to be stuck on 207lbs. This water weight should have gone by now, and I'm blaming this period-from-hell for my body's stubbornness. It's hanging around longer than a pervert at a porn party, and I'm beginning to think it's decided to take up permanent residence. I guess this is the downside of PCOS - I usually only have around one period a year, so this is my body getting its own back. OK, so maybe I deserved it, but c'mon, enough, already!

By English standards, it's hot here today (around 25C/80F), and when it's this hot I'm like a fractious two year old. Unfortunately, unlike a two year old, I can't play in a nice cool paddling pool and walk around in the garden nekkid all day........well, I suppose I could but the neighbours might decide to have me arrested. So instead I have to suffer the heat, which gives me sweat rashes in all my tender fat folds and makes me feel drained and apathetic.

This evening I'll force myself to get some exercise, but for now I'll have to content myself with drinking plenty of water and sitting indoors in the cool shade. If anyone living in Greenland is reading this and wants to do a job/house swap for the duration of the summer, just let me know!

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Later...

Just got back from an hour long walk - I decided not to wait for the cool of the evening, and set off in the blazing sunshine with no water and no hat. There's no fool like an old fool...

I was walking in my new Jesus sandals , which are supposed to be hugely comfortable for all-terrain walking. Yep, I know what you're thinking - SEXY (not) - but hell, I decided now I was 40 I could afford to sacrifice style for comfort. The saleslady told me they were like walking on clouds. Yeah, right. I was only walking on tarmac, yet I got huge blisters on the ball of each foot, which burst about two miles from home so I had to squelchily hobble home as best as I could. My soles are a pulpy, bloody mess, and totally fucked! So I guess it's bike riding for me for the next couple of days, until some new skin grows over the sore patches. Looking on the bright side, I lost so much skin off the bottom of each foot that I'm SURE to have lost weight at tomorrow's weigh-in!

Today's Fatslaying Workout 55 minute brisk walk.

Today's Weight 208.0lbs

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I’m definitely getting the upper hand in my on-going battle with the weighing scales. Yesterday I had a char grilled smoked gammon steak and salad for dinner, and this morning the scales punished me with a 1.5lb gain, bringing me to a total of 2lbs gained in as many days. In a previous existence I’d have been devastated, and probably allowed my disappointment to knock me off the wagon. Nowadays, I’m older and wiser, and I know the scale is lying. And ‘cos I know it’s lying, it’s powerless to upset me. I am utterly serene. You could probably poke me with a sharp stick and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. There’s no way in the world that I’ve eaten 7000 excess calories in the past 48 hours, so it’s simply not ‘fat gain’, and must just be water gain from the high sodium content in the gammon. Thank the Lord I didn’t add capers and pickles to my salad! All I have to do is increase my intake of water for the next couple of days (glug, glug) and it’ll right itself by the weekend.

At least, it better bloody right itself, or I’m taking a sledgehammer to the fucking scales! Heh heh, only kidding!

I’ve been fantasising lately about the sort of clothes I’ll be wearing when I get to goal, and I’m sad to say that the item of clothing I’m most looking forward to wearing is a pair of Levi 501s. That’s not very exciting is it? It shows a woeful lack of imagination. But I’ve NEVER owned a pair of Levis – my jeans experience to date is of wearing hideous fat-lady-shop generic brands, the kinds made with gruesome ‘stretch denim’, that lack belt loops and proper zips, and often have fake pockets, or no pockets at all. Small wonder I've avoided them like the plague for the last 20 years. So it’ll be a thrill to own a pair of Levis, and to be able to walk in them without that whispery swish-swish-swish sound of denim rubbing against demin as my fat thighs rub together – man, I’m so looking forward to that!

I guess next on the list would be nice feminine lingerie. Something a bit floozyish and racy, and a million miles from sensible. I’m not particularly yearning for undies reminiscent of dental floss, razoring up my arse crack, but I would like to be able to ditch the big knickers and the industrial-grade edifice designed to keep my unruly udders in check, and switch them for something a little sexier. Hell, I may even buy a set of red lingerie - or even a lacy red basque!

Today's Fatslaying Workout 52 minutes rebounding.

Today's Weight 206.5lbs

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I’ve been tyring to figure out what caused me to fail at my previous weight loss attempts, so that I can try and avoid the same pitfalls. It’s been illuminating to scrutinise my past behaviour, and see the distinct patterns that have underpinned all my previous attempts to achieve my goal.

In a nutshell, my pattern goes something like this…

Stage One – Denial

This is where our heroine sticks her fingers in her ears and sings loudly to herself to drown out the chorus of voices (mainly from within) telling her that she needs to do something urgently about her ever-expanding fat-rolls and increasing susceptibility to health problems. Behaviours exhibited in Stage One include getting dressed with her eyes closed so as not to catch a glimpse of said fat-rolls; switching to elasticated waistbands and hanging ‘thin clothes’ at the back of the closet where they can gather dust; packing away fitness equipment and getting zero exercise (to the extent that our heroine takes the lift rather than walk up even one flight of stairs); eating a diet comprised almost entirely of processed, refined carbs; and periodic episodes of self-loathing when our heroine has a moment of mental clarity and realises she ought to be dieting – which she does for 8 hours or so - before the mental fog re-descends .

Stage Two – Dawn of the Dead

This is where our heroine suddenly has an epiphany, and decides “once and for all” to tackle her weight problem. Behaviours exhibited in Stage Two include a sudden flurry of obsessive journalling; a compulsive desire to calculate to the nearest second when the far-distant goal will be achieved; daily weigh-ins (with attendant agony or ecstasy); refusal to allow so much as a morsel of refined carbs to pass the martyred lips; embarkation on a rigourous and demanding daily exercise schedule designed to bring our heroine to olympic standard in a matter of weeks; total immersion in that strange other-world of weight-loss message boards and blogs; and a sudden fascination with celebrity diet and fitness secrets.

Stage Three – Attention Deficit Disorder

This is where our heroine – who thus far has been a dieting demon for around 6 months – suddenly and inexplicably runs out of steam and falls spectacularly off the wagon. Behaviours exhibited in Stage Three include skulking around in a false moustache and glasses to avoid encounters with people who will ask how the diet is going; surreptitious eating (eg. chocolate in the car on the way home from work) so as to maintain the illusion for as long as possible at home that the diet is still going strong; an excuse-laden avoidance of exercise; and acutely unavoidable feelings of shame and disgust.

This has been my pattern for at least the last 20 years – burying my head in the sand while gaining 30, 40, 50, 60 lbs, then having 6 months or so of fiercely strict dieting, followed by the inevitable failure and the regain of all the lost weight, and always of course a little more.

Somehow, this time I’ve got to break the cycle.

I’ve got to try and figure out exactly what derails me, because if I don’t figure it out in time, what’s to stop me failing like all the other times? It’s not as if I’ve never been as committed as I am at the moment – I’ve been here before, going full steam ahead in calm waters – and then whammo, suddenly I’ve capsized and sharks are lining up to eat me for breakfast.

So where do I go wrong?

Sometimes I think it’s sheer boredom with having to worry about it all the time. All the measuring, weighing, exercising, water-drinking, eating sufficient fruit and veggies suddenly stops being interesting and exciting and just turns into a huge chore. I suddenly start resenting having to put in so much effort to achieve something that so many slim people seem to take for granted – and I think “Sod it, I’m just going to live and eat like a ‘normal’ person.” And of course that’s disastrous, because I’ve never really learned or studied what ‘naturally slim’ people DO – I’ve never watched them to determine if they exercise portion control, or make better choices, or exercise more, or take 50 laxatives a day. So I try to emulate without doing the groundwork, and of course that’s doomed to failure.

Another reason I’ve quit in the past is complacency. I’ll cruise along losing steadily each and every week, thinking I’ve sussed this whole weight-loss biz and I’m going to carry on cruising all the way to the finish line and beyond. Then suddenly I’ll hit a mini plateau and all that hubris and over-confidence comes crashing down around my ears. It feels like the end of the world, because I’ve got so much invested in untrammelled success, and a small setback seems like a huge failure.

A third reason I’ve quit before is because a little voice in my head starts playing mind-fuck games with me! It starts saying things like “Don’t you think it’s vain to spend so much time thinking about your appearance?” or (more insidiously) “Don’t you think it’s selfish and insensitive to be improving your own health so much when Km’s health is so poor?” [This was a very effective mind-fucking tactic before K had his surgery – and it still has the power to knock me for six even now].

Thinking about my current journey, I think that I’ve learned some lessons, but by no means all. I don’t think I’m in too much danger of getting bored, or mistakenly thinking that I can suddenly start eating like this mythical ‘thin’ person. I’ve started to choose things for their innate nutritional value, not just because they’re low calorie or low fat, and I’ve also been working hard on portion control, and trying to think whether I really want something before I mindlessly shovel it into my mouth. I guess that’s a good start.

I’ve also been trying really hard not to get too hung up on the number on the scale, so that I don’t have those extreme high-low mood swings. It’s crazy to give a lump of metal and plastic the power to make or break my day. So, although I’ve been weighing every day to keep me accountable, I’ve been taking the numbers with a pretty large grain of salt. Gain or lose, I’m trying to learn that it’s no big deal. If I just keep chipping away at this I WILL get to goal eventually, and I’ve just got to accept that that will take time, and patience, and hard work, and setbacks and detours etc.

So that just leave the mind-fucking voices, and I don’t mind admitting, they’re the things I worry about the most. When that little interior monologue starts up, it can do untold amounts of damage to my resolve and attitude. You could put all the temption in the world in front of me and I’ll be able to resist it, but that voice is a killer. It turns everything on its head and undoes every argument. Suddenly trying to live a healthy lifestyle feels foolish, selfish, self-indulgent, vain, shallow, insensitive. The voice says I shouldn’t invest so much time thinking about myself, that it’s obscene to worry about food and body image when there are children starving to death in Africa, that I shouldn’t be trying to get healthy and live longer when K has major health drawbacks, that I should stop thinking about myself all the time….yada yada yada.

Somehow I’ve got to silence that voice before it gets going…and somehow I suspect that’s not going to be easy.

Today's Fatslaying Workout 53 minutes very brisk walk; 30 minutes free weights.

Today's Weight 206.0lbs

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What is it with weight loss bloggers at the moment – they all seem to have got bitten by the running bug.

Shit, what if it’s contagious?

At work a couple of my co-workers are runners, and I must confess that I’m getting mighty tempted to strap on some serious udder control and have a bash myself. A couple of things are putting me off, but I don’t know whether to ignore them or not. Am I just being a big Jessie?

The first problem is my gimpy foot, which becomes sharply painful whenever I walk any sort of distance. I can tolerate this when I’m just walking, but I’m a little concerned that running might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Ditto with my right knee – it bumps and grinds worse than a second-rate pole dancer, and I suspect that subjecting it to high impact activity when I’m still 206lbs may be its undoing.

Third problem is with my neck and shoulders – for some reason jogging has always given me a stiff neck (now why is that??). I don’t want to stir up dormant problems from my old back injury, so this makes me a little leery of throwing myself into a jogging schedule.

Boy, I sound like the worst kind of hypochondriac!

I don't want to be a wuss, but my aches and pains are something I'm going to have to think about before I just take the plunge - I am 40 after all!! Heh heh. Its not that I'm particularly pain averse (at least no more than the next person I don't think), but I don't want to make poor exercise choices and knacker myself completely. Experience has taught me that regular exercise is THE most important factor in weight loss for me - it underpins absolutely everything, so I can't jeopardise that. I think I'll have to look into this running lark a bit longer before I commit myself...

Today's Fatslaying Workout 50 minutes bouncing.

Today's Weight 206.5lbs (Yep, I thing there's something wrong with me, 'cos it's STILL TOM!!)

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It’s just beginning to dawn on me how much time I’ll need to devote to attaining and maintaining a healthy lifestyle…and I won’t kid you, it’s pretty scary.

Because I’m an accountant I don’t get any physical activity as part of my daily job, and instead of being integral to my daily work, exercise is an addendum, something I have to set aside a specific time slot for. I guess this concept would be completely alien to someone of my parents’ (they’re 79 and 76) and grandparents’ generation – they walked everywhere, did long hours of physical labour, sat down for frugal meals at the end of the working day, and then pretty much went to bed to recharge their batteries before the whole cycle started again the following day. It would never have entered their head to do a ‘sport’ or to ‘get some exercise’ – there was simply never a need for it.

Unfortunately my lifestyle is the polar opposite of this. I get up at 5am, shower and make myself a sandwich for lunch. I drive to work (19 miles), sit at a desk from 6.30am until 5.30pm, drive home again, get in around 6-6.15pm, eat dinner (prepared by my lovely K), hit the ‘puter or watch something on the box for an hour or so, then exercise for an hour between 8pm and 9pm. Then I ‘relax’, which comprises a mixture of chatting with K, reading, hitting the ‘puter again or watching more TV, before heading for bed at around 11pm.

That lifestyle is crap, right? Artificial, alien to the natural human pattern, and fundamentally unhealthy. One hour out of 24 is devoted to ‘exercise’, and the rest of the time I’m imitating a Buddha and sitting on my arse. I spend so much time sitting it’s a wonder I haven’t got calluses forming on my bum cheeks!

Sadly I’m not in a position to give up work or change my job to farm hand or coal miner, so I’m stuck with a large swathe of my working week over which I can do little to control the amount of activity I do. It’s a horrible thought, but in an average week I spend 65% of my time (or 110 hours!) sleeping, working, getting ready for work, and commuting.

However, (I’m determined to keep positive!) that still leaves me 58 hours each week in which I CAN control my activities. Admittedly most of those hours are at the weekend, but I could still make better use of my workday evenings. I have around 4.5hrs each night between getting home and going to bed. I could – and should – make better use of them, rather than squander them watching telly or browsing the internet.

Because I’m an office-based worker, I’ve got to accept that if I want to get healthy and stay healthy, then I’ve got to get myself out of the vegging-in-front-of-the-telly rut. I’ve got to make the best use of my free time and develop better habits. I’ve been guilty of thinking that after I get to goal I can ease off on the gas and hit cruise control. It was this sort of sloppy thinking that contributed to me regaining 56lbs in the 80 weeks between October 2002 and April 2004 (after the blood sweat and tears it took me to lose 48lb in the previous 8 months). I can’t and won’t let that happen to me again!

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I have to admit, though, that I’m just fundamentally an idle person. Unlike some folks who are fidgety and who just can’t sit still, I can happily sit for hours and hours doing basically bugger all. Whole weekends go by with none of my good intentions (to go lots of gardening, to wash my car, to spring clean, to do some DIY) having come to anything. I need to fundamentally retrain myself into more active, healthy patterns, so that ‘exercise’ isn’t just an oasis in the middle of a desert of inactivity. Hmmm, fundamental change – can a leopard really change its spots?

Today's Fatslaying Workout 55 minute very brisk walk.

Today's Weight 207.0lbs (Yep, this is getting tedious but it's STILL TOM!!)

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Woohoo - I've officially lost 10% of my starting body weight! Yay me! Yesterday (after the previous night's indulgencies) I weighed 206.5lbs, but today the scales stopped decisively on 207lbs. I never accept a new low weight until I've hit it for two mornings, so I reckon the 207lbs is 'real' and it's therefore time to celebrate. 230lbs to 207lbs in 12 weeks and 5 days. WTG me!

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Yesterday I didn't post because I was pretty busy - went to watch the Mountain Bike National Points Series race in Thetford Forest, and then spent the rest of the day drooling over swanky new bikes on the 'net. I know this isn't some folks' idea of "busy", but it does for me!

Luckily I didn't have a hangover from the night before, but I deserved one! I was pretty good foodwise ( I had one very small spoonful each of chicken balti, vegetable jalfrezi, aloo gobi, bombay aloo and pilau rice, as well as two poppadoms) but I went a bit overboard on the alcohol. They forced me! Ha ha. I ended up having 1.5 pints of Cobra, 4 G&Ts, 4 shots of butterscotch schnapps and 4 shots of sour apple schnapps. Altogether about 1500 calories of alcohol. BAAAAAD girl!

Amazingly, it didn't seem to have any adverse consequences, though. I dropped a whole pound overnight, which I expected to rebound today, but I only regained 0.5lbs. Yowzser, what a result!

Note to self: Don't make the mistake of thinking I can therefore do this every week with the same favourable outcome!

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Anyway, I expect to see a slow down in my weight loss in the coming weeks, as I went into town today and bought a heavier set of dumbbells. I've been (very irregularly) using some 1.5lbs dumbbells, but I've decided to up the ante. I'm still being a wuss and starting on 4.5lbs per hand, but these new dumbbells I've bought have extra weights to take each bell up to 3kg. I know that's small fry to some ladies, but hell, a gal's gotta start somewhere, and maybe this time next year I'll be benchpressing 100kg. Yeah, right. Anyway, I'm up for the challenge, and my batwings' days are numbered!

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Update:

Just finished my first weight workout with the 4.5lb dumbbells. It took me around 20 minutes and I did 1 x 10 crunches, 2 x 15 overhead triceps extensions, 2 x 15 triceps kickbacks, 2 x 15 standing shoulder presses, 2 x 15 dumbbell shrugs, 3 x 15 bench presses, 3 x 10 biceps curls, 1 x 10 dumbbell squats and 2 x 15 dumbbell straight back straight leg dead lifts.

Phew, I must be such a weakling, I'm knackered now!

Today's Fatslaying Workout None. Rest day.

Today's Weight 207.5lbs (Yep, STILL TOM!!)

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Grrrr, people that think in stereotypes really piss me off sometimes! I went out for a quick bite to eat with a friend yesterday – she’s blond and willowy and very feminine, whereas I’m short and dumpy and not what you’d call a girly-girl even on a good day.

We went to one of those trendy places where they deliver your drink order to your table. I ordered a sparkling mineral water, while she ordered a pint of lager and a tequila chaser. The waiter bought the drinks to our table and automatically put the pint and chaser down in front of me, and the water in front of her, even though it was he who had taken the order in the first place. He did this twice more throughout the course of the meal, despite collecting our empty glasses as he delivered the fresh drinks.

To add insult to injury he did the same when he bought out our food. I’d ordered a seared tuna steak and salad, whereas she’d ordered a double-stack chiliburger with fries and a side of onion rings. Guess who got handed the burger and fries?

Ditto with dessert – I ordered fresh fruit salad, she ordered brownies and cream. When he tried to put the brownies in front of me, I was almost peeved enough to ram them in his smug, unobservant, insensitive chops. What the hell is wrong with people? To blunder once and make mindless assumptions is acceptable, but c’mon, how many friggin' chances do you need to finally get it right?

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I'm probably grouchy because I'm getting nervous about going out this evening. As I mentioned elsewhere , I'm a bit nervous about going out this evening. There will be lots of pressure to get rat-arsed (and alcohol is soooooooo high in calories!), added to the calorie-laden Indian food (which I ADORE!), plus I'm going out with three friends, all of whom are drop-dead gorgeous, and all of whom will be having to beat off slavering men with a stick the whole night long. If this smacks of jealousy, it is (a little bit) - it's galling to be so thoroughly outclassed!

Ah well, another good reason to keep on keeping on with this healthy living - as the pounds start to drop I'll hopefully start to feel more self-confident and less like some dowdy ugly duckling.

TAWANDA!! This is no time to feel down in the dumps! I'm just going to go out, quit whining and worrying, and enjoy myself...

Today's Fatslaying Workout 56 minutes brisk walking.

Today's Weight 207.5lbs (Yep, STILL TOM!!)

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Oh boy, I’m feeling pretty good about life today. I’ve just had an epiphany.

Usually when I think about my weight and about how much it’s blighted my life, I could cry from sheer frustration and annoyance. I beat myself up about it – why didn’t I try to get to grips with this problem sooner, why have I been so lazy, what a waste of my youth, what damage have I done to myself?

This negativity doesn’t solve anything, and it just makes me feel shitty. I can’t turn back the clock, so I’ve just got to learn to accept that what’s gone is gone, and that it’s the future that’s important. It helps, though, to get some kind of perspective on just what I think I’ve been missing out on all these years.

OK, so weight and shyness prevented me from doing the usual teenage act-like-an-idiot-and-put-out-for-spotty-boys thing - well big frigging deal. It prevented me from running with the cool crowd at school, college and university - well so bloody what? It’s held me back from clubbing and partying, from tapping off and notching up a string of one-night-stands – well hoo-fucking-ray. What have I really missed out on? Obviously not a lot, when you look at it in the clear light of day.

Focusing on the positive, my weight hasn’t prevented me from achieving any of the really important things in my life. It didn’t stop me from having a couple of really great boyfriends (consecutively, not concurrently!), before finally settling down with a man who I love with my whole heart, and who loves and accepts me whatever I weigh. It didn’t stop me from excelling at school and university, and from achieving more than I ever expected in my career. It didn’t stop me developing good, rich relationships with my family and a few close friends. It hasn’t stopped me from reading and writing (my two favourite pastimes). In all the ways that really matter, it hasn’t held me back in the slightest.

And you know what? In a way, it could be seen as a bonus to have been fat for the first 40 years of my life. Looking on the bright side, I’ll be better looking at 41 than I was at 21. Not that that’s saying much, ‘cos I was hideous at 21, but hey, you’ve got to take your wins where you can find ‘em! I reckon at 41 I’ll be bloody gorgeous . With clothes on, at any rate. So at the age when other women are beginning to fret about losing their good looks and leaving their best years behind, I’ll just be reaching my peak. Yowzer! Add that to the much vaunted 40-yr-old-female sexual peak, and I’m onto a winner!

There’s something to be said for being a late bloomer. For me life truly has begun at 40, since I'm bursting with new energies and enthusiasms. Yay me! I’ll finally have the confidence to indulge my girly side, and have fun experimenting with clothes, colours, hairstyles etc. You can forget the snidey comments about mutton dressed up as lamb 'cos I don’t give a damn and I’m planning on having a ball! I’ll be able to learn new things about myself - I’ll find new sports and activities to motivate me, uncover fresh cuisines and cooking methods to tempt me, push and challenge myself to achieve things I never thought were remotely possible for me. Woohoo. And just think, if I’d lived a life of skinny I wouldn’t have this to look forward to, this euphoric feeling of emerging from a chrysalis, flapping my wings and flying for the first time. I have the fat to thank for all this heady anticipation!

Today's Fatslaying Workout 56 minutes brisk walking.

Today's Weight 208.0lbs (Can you believe it's still TOM!?!)

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The NHS hospital I work in has just become a complete non-smoking site, which has gone down a storm with the anti-smoking lobby, and severely pissed off the diehard ciggie brigade. Staff, patients and visitors are all forbidden from smoking anywhere on site, even in their parked cars with the windows tightly closed. The rationale for the new policy is that as a publicly funded healthcare provider it is our responsibility to set a good example to the rest of the population, and that the cluster of desperate nicotine junkies gathered outside every entrance (especially the maternity block), not to mention the ankle deep fag butts, give a very poor impression. Presumably Joe Public can’t be trusted to make healthy choices of his own accord, and he must be dragged kicking and screaming towards a healthier lifestyle, whether he wants to adopt one or not.

Since the ban came into force a month or so ago, I’ve overheard FOUR separate conversations which went something like this:

Anti-ban: “They’re just picking on smokers! We don’t smoke for fun, we’re addicted – it’s not fair!”

Pro-ban: “Smokers cost the NHS a fortune. THAT’s what’s not fair. You smokers are bankrupting the NHS. People should be forced to quit smoking or forfeit free healthcare.”

Anti-ban (triumphantly): “Well what about fat people then?”

Pro-ban: “What about fat people?”

Anti-ban: “Well they cost the NHS a fortune too. More than smokers do, probably. Maybe we should go down to the canteen and grab doughnuts out of the hands of fatties and ban them from eating chips and chocolate. It’s the same principle. And no free healthcare for them if they refuse to shape up.”

Pro-ban: “Hmmm, hadn’t thought of that. Good idea!”

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I reckon it’s only a matter of time before the obese turn into the next pariah group. You can already see it in news articles and TV scheduling – this demonising of the ‘wilfully’ unhealthy.

Every time you turn on the box you see yet another semi-naked chubster being ritually humiliated by a panel of sadistic beanpoles so that the self-righteous bastards sitting at home on their sofas can feel morally and physically superior. It's a solid gold guarantor of good ratings - prime time entertainment.

Let's be honest, shall we? This isn't 'entertainment', it's Fat Baiting, pure and simple. If the victims were bears or badgers there'd be uproar, but luckily there's always some poor media-whipped volunteer roly-poly willing to self-flagellate by stepping up to the plate.

Honestly, we might as well just go the whole hog, chuck 'em in an arena for a fight to the death, and goad 'em to see who can eat the most of their fellow-competitors to win a lifetime's worth of lard and chocolate.

Enough, already!

Have you noticed that while most people seem to have cottoned onto the fact that it’s not acceptable to insult people on the grounds of their race, religion, colour, or mental or physical disability, it’s perfectly socially acceptable – if not practically obligatory – to rip the piss out of the obese. And the greater the obesity, the bigger the piss-taking. People with otherwise impeccable politically correct credentials will happily make offhand anti-fat comments that are breathtaking in their underlying mindset and stereotyping. It’s as if obesity really gets up people’s noses, since fat-derision is turning into an national epidemic.

You know what? It’s ALMOST enough to make me want to stay fat, just out of sheer bloody-mindedness!

Today's Fatslaying Workout A brisk 56 minute walk

Today's Weight 208.5lbs (Can you believe it's still TOM!?!)

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Today is my 12 week anniversary – 84 days of following a sensible, balanced diet (wholegrains, lots of fresh fruit and veggies, complex carbs, ‘good’ fats and going cold turkey on junk foods), exercising regularly (45+ minutes cardio at least 5 times a week) , drinking plenty of water (2+ litres a day) and generally trying to whip myself into better shape.

And how has it been so far?

Well, surprisingly not that bad. If I’m being completely and totally honest, I have to confess that I haven’t found it a struggle at all – at least not so far!

So what have been the difficult parts?

Top of the list is probably getting sufficient exercise. Sometimes (an understatement!) it’s the last thing I feel like doing, and I have to really give myself a stern talking to, and FORCE myself to just quit whining and get on with it. I guess I’m just not one of life’s natural athletes. I don’t mind it when I’m actually doing it, but it’s the thought of doing it that is so hard sometimes. (Oh my god, I just realised I sound like my mother-out-law talking about sex! Heh heh..) So yeah, that’s been a bit of a struggle.

What else has been hard? I guess forcing to myself to be patient and see the bigger picture has been hard for me, because in all aspects of my life I’m just so bloody impatient! I want results and I want them NOW, and the thought of it being months and months until I’m in a healthy weight zone is sometimes hard to accept. This impatience is something I must get to grips with (and I’m trying, honestly!), because failure to see quick enough results has been behind every one of my previous diet derailments. I’m buggered if I’m going to let it scupper me this time!

For the first few weeks I went a bit doolally, using Excel spreadsheets five times a day to figure out when I’d have lost 10lbs, 20lb, 30lbs etc…how soon I’d get to goal if my loss was 1lb/1.5lbs/2lbs each and every week etc. The day I caught myself counting the number of peas on my plate was the day that I decided enough was enough! I had to force myself to just relax about the whole journey, and try to cultivate a more chilled approach. (Ssshhhh, keep it quiet but I had three more peas today than I did yesterday. Heh heh - only kidding!).

What else? Oh yeah, well allied to the above, is the difficulty in gaining (and maintaining!) some perspective when the scales just will not behave themselves and move in the right direction. On several occasions I’ve been tempted to throw the perfidious, soul-destroying things out of the window, but this is another area that I’m working on being chilled about. I weigh myself every day, and I’m trying to take the rough with the smooth – I seem to lose for a couple of days in a row, maintain for another couple of days and then gain for a day or two before dropping again. It’s so weird to study your body’s rhythms and fluctuations! Perhaps seeing myself as some sort of laboratory rat will take the sting out of the days when the scale is being uncooperative.

So those have been the hard things. Exercising is hard, maintaining my sanity and a sense of perspective has been hard. As for the rest of it - easy peasy!

I’ve discovered something about myself in the last 12 weeks – I actually LIKE dieting! Not in some dysfunctional, desperate, anorexic sense – but I DO like the buzz that successful weightloss brings. I guess it’s all about feeling in control. What I think I’m going to really struggle with is when the loss slows down as you get closer to goal. Oh, and maintenance. I have this horrible feeling that maintenance is going to be a BITCH!

Today's Fatslaying Workout
Rebounding (to Green Day) 47 minutes (502 calories burned)

Today's Weight 208.5lbs (though STILL TOM!)

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I'm beginning to look thinner. Definitely. My face is finally beginning to get a little definition, and a neck seems to be emerging slowly from the swamp of double chins. And my knuckles and wrist bones seem more prominent, for some strange reason. Oh, and I'm pretty sure my earlobes are getting pretty foxy too - I'd better stop losing before I start to look too gaunt!

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OK, because this blog is all about honestly, I'm about to reveal something really shameful and despicable about myself. Are you ready?

Sibling rivalry and schadenfreude are terrible things, aren't they? So why do they seem to rear their ugly heads whenever weightloss is on the agenda?

I phone my parents twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays, and usually one or other of them (and often both of them) will bring up the subject of weight. This usually takes the form of a disparaging comment about one of my sisters or one of my nieces, and the conversation goes something like this...

Mom (or more commonly Dad): "X came round at the weekend. Oooh, she's looking a right state. You should see the size of her backside..."

Me: "Uh huh.... So did you have a nice time at the theatre?"

Parent: "She must be 15 stones by now. Talk about thunder thighs and arms like an Irish navvie..."

Me: "So what play are you going to see next week?"

Parent: "She insists she's only a size 20 but she's at least a 24...I don't know who she thinks she's kidding..."

Me: (cracking) "So how much weight has she put on then...?"

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What is it with parents? They insist they love us whatever we look like, but they prove that's not the case with every sentence they utter. And guess what - the sister who happens to be doing better than her siblings is ALWAYS a colluder.

When you've grown up in a household with two thin-to-medium-sized-body-image-conscious parents and 4 great hefty gallumphing girls (and one skinnier one), the only way you're EVER going to get any approval or praise is when you start shedding pounds and out-thin your sisters. Or (more accurately) they out-fat you.

Whenever there's any change in the status quo, sisterly solidarity goes out of the window, and is replaced with naked competition for our parents' approval.

Dieters red in tooth and claw.

It's pathetic and shameful! Whenever one of my sisters loses weight, we all line up to oooh and aaahh over her new svelte body, and we pretend that we're thrilled for her, which we are - to a certain extent - but not totally. 'Cos as soon as she starts to slip and regain the lost pounds, we're like a coven of harpies, making snidey oh-so-innocent comments to our parents, that are designed to score maximum points.

One of us will say (innocently, of course), "How's P doing on her diet. Is she still losing steadily?" (when we know damn well she isn't) and then we'll sit back in our shameful relief as our parents are off like a ferret after a rat..."Oh no, she's piling it all back on, she's eating like a pig at the moment, she'll start blocking out the sun if she gets any fatter..." Yada, yada, yada.

Then we siblings can heave a collective sigh of relief - the status quo is restored, we're all fat together and no-one's in danger of being the only fat one left behind.

Is my family the only one that is this dysfunctional? I KNOW I should be 100% thrilled for my sisters when one of them manages to lose weight, but there's always that nagging inner worry that if you're left behind all of the crushing weight of parental anti-fatness will cascade down upon you alone...

I think that's why I'm always so keen to get my sisters dieting when I'm dieting - so that we can either all be fat together or all be thin together. Just as long as I get to be the thinnest first...